<p>Beyond Tuesday’s Medicaid portal outage, Democrats fear there’s an even greater risk to the federal program that lower-income Illinoisans rely on for health care: a federal budget cut that could lead to more than 900,000 people losing coverage.</p><p>Republicans in Congress are discussing a plan to slash the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which drastically increased enrollment for the program. The cut to Medicaid costs would lower costs for the federal government, but increase the cost for states.</p><p>Several Medicaid cuts are being discussed to help fund President Donald Trump’s massive tax cut and his immigration crackdown bill.</p><p>But Illinois has a “trigger” law that would automatically end Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions in the state if federal funding is cut — which means 931,169 Illinoisans would lose their health coverage, according to the <a class="Link" href="https://ift.tt/NwC5WIx" target="_blank" >U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.</a></p><p>The Medicaid cuts are a top concern for Gov. JB Pritzker and his staff, who say it would blow up the state budget in an already challenging fiscal year.</p><p>The Medicaid cuts were included in a list of 200 items being distributed by the House Budget Committee. The biggest proposal would limit the amount of federal payments for a flat fee for each enrolled person, instead of having the federal and state governments split the medical costs of beneficiaries, according to the New York Times.</p><p>Most of the Medicaid changes would force state governments to try to make up for the loss, and would be opposed by Pritzker and other governors.</p><p>Democratic National Committee Executive Director Sam Cornale is sounding the alarm on the potential cut, accusing Trump of focusing on “the bottom line of his billionaire backers, not working Illinoisans.”</p><p>“Make no mistake, it’s not just Illinoisans’ pocketbooks but also their health that’s on the line,” Cornale said in a statement to the Sun-Times. “ If Trump follows through on these threats, Democrats will make sure those Illinoisans know exactly who is responsible.”</p><p>Congressional Republicans are still negotiating. But some of the items they are mulling won’t qualify for passage through the reconciliation process they are seeking, which would not require any Democratic support in the Senate. </p>
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January 29, 2025 at 06:11AM
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